Have you heard of Simplicity by September? No? Maybe you know it as Junk Free July? Organized in October? Less Mess March? It’s ok. Clearly, we’ve got some work to do. There’s a movement going on in the world. We GenXers have hit the wall. We were tasked with caregiving for our Greatest Gen parents, or even our Boomer elders (I had both), and we weren’t expecting the fallout to be this grim. Those generations subscribed to a waste not/want not philosophy. They realized the value of things. Their epiphany was centered around the fact that things cost money, but if they only took care of all possessions properly, if they guarded/ tended/repaired/saved, then they would never need to buy those things again. “I could toss this tin foil, but what if I just kept saving the tiny pieces until it formed a ball large enough to take up a spare bedroom? I’d never have to worry about having enough tin foil again!” Saving the Benjamins was all that mattered to them. It is a worthy and valid hill to die on, I must say. But, the result is utter chaos, especially to those of us left behind to declutter homesteads, execute wills, and dispense tchotchkes. It’s like we all woke up one morning, after futile attempts to find anyone willing to house Great Aunt Opal’s fox stole that she only ever wore once a year when Uncle Opie took her downtown to see the Christmas window at Niemen-Marcus, shouting the same mantra. WE WILL NOT DO THIS TO OUR CHILDREN. We won’t force them to hang onto the gift tags we saved for them from the baby showers thrown for us when they were still safe in our bellies (true story). They will not inherit bags upon bags of empty penny roller casings (also true). Their inheritance will not center around a metric ton of instamatic triplicate pictures that show more fingertips than scenery (yep). And, unlike our parents, we’ll save our children the guilt of having to feel that feeling of impending doom from throwing away the things they know we cherished. We will get rid of everything. We will do it right now.
The rules are very straightforward. On the first day of the month, you choose one item. That item can be tossed, gifted to another, or donated to thrift. On the second day, you choose two things. On the third day, you prep to say a fond farewell to 3 objects. And, so it continues, day by day. Sounds so simple, until you realize there will soon come a day where you have to find 31 things that will leave your possession after getting rid of 30 the day before! Still, it’s cathartic and empowering. I find myself slow walking through my house like a shark swimming amongst the legs of a crowded surf: stealthy, cunning, maniacal. What will I choose next in my quest for an uncluttered home? Will it be that stockpot I bought for all the canning I never did 20 years ago? Do I really need a back-up coffee maker? Do I really need a third dog? I AM JUST KIDDING. Poe stays. You get the gist. Nothing is safe around me this month. Everything was going along fantastically, too, until today. Today, I entered the guest room closet. When my daughter passed away, we moved. The world had turned upside down. The economy was even worse. We looked at our adjustable-rate tripling mortgage and our severely impacted careers and made the difficult yet crystal clear decision to try and sell our home. I boxed up bin after bin. 21 very large totes were full of Chynna’s things: her dance costumes, 16 years of precious toys, every high school notebook she’d doodled into, tap shoes, toe shoes, books, clothes…. I could not/would not part with a single thing. I remember crying out loud. It’s all I have left of her, God. I cannot leave these things behind any more than I could’ve left her behind. And, so it was. We Uhauled those bins to Tyler to live for a bit. We shlepped them back to Rockwall with us, first to a town home and then to a cool 70s era Spanish style house. Finally, they came back with us to Forney, just a hop across Highway 80 from where I’d packed them up all those years ago. I began to use a more critical eye. Did I actually enjoy going through all of the bins? I did not. Did they bring me joy? Actually, they tended to catapult me into crying fits that would last for days on end. Were they important to me? Turns out, I decided all the stuff devalued my relationship with my daughter, for Chynna was an asset that deserved to appreciate like the finest castle, not depreciate like an over-priced used car leaving a seedy lot. But, on this day, I approached the 1 single bin I have left of my daughter’s things. I called my daughter-in-law, the one person who will not hesitate to tell me how the cow ate the cabbage. “Is it ok for me to get rid of most of this? I mean, do I need her baby handprint – the one in plaster?” Laurali Elizabeth Marietta Fidurski Zmolik did not miss a beat. She said, “You mean the one you did yourself where you didn’t really press hard enough, and it looks like she didn’t have a thumb? No, you don’t need it. You have the memory of doing it, and that is the best part of the amazing legend that is Chynna Zmolik. We have the memories.” There shall be Simplicity by September after all.
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